


I Want to be Known

by twinkrevali



Series: Androids in Love [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Androids, Gen, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Light Angst, M/M, Nothing major though, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, featuring comic relief from ur favourite owl faced ace, kuroo is clumsy as hell, mentions of hospital injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 07:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4339874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinkrevali/pseuds/twinkrevali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Wow,” Kuroo whistles, nodding at the android staring at him, “You’re pretty emo for a robot.” </p>
<p>(In which Kenma is a hospital bot who hates working in a hospital and Kuroo is a human who's determined to break him out.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want to be Known

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is!! Part two of the android au~  
> This story is set maybe a year and a half before the bokuaka, and whilst some parts of the fic fall in line with 'Static', it can totally be read as a standalone :)  
> Super excited that this is a thing that I've managed to start, I have quite a few other stories in my head, but not all of them have pairings so we'll see how it pans out ahaha
> 
> Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think!!

“Kenma, when you’re ready there’s a tier three awaiting assistance in the Emergency Ward, Cubicle One.”

Kenma blinks up from where he’s seated besides a despondent figure, hands clasped together in his lap. He stares at Morisuke standing in the doorway blankly before nodding once and pushing himself out of the plastic chair.

His eyes flicker as he casts one more look towards the figure lying in the bed.

“I’ll need to lodge a report for this human before I go; they’re ready to pass,” Kenma says, voice steady as he turns to face Morisuke. The medibot casts him a sympathetic look, but simply nods, offering a quiet “Take your time, this is your third this week, right?”

Kenma just nods, ignoring the noise of pity Morisuke makes in his throat.

“Y’know if you need anything, like a recalibration or just some time in a Pod I can arrange–” the medibot starts, but Kenma is shaking is his head before Morisuke can finish the offer.

“It’s fine.” He mutters, moving past the android, mouth turning downwards, “This is what we were made for.”

Kenma walks straight to the nurses’ station, eyes flickering as they process the visual information around them. _Third in a week, huh_ he thinks, _there must be something in the water._

As he arrives at the station, the android sitting at the desk looks up to greet him with a gentle smile.

“We need to stop running into each other like this,” comes the usual greeting, and Kenma blinks, acknowledging it with a twitch of his mouth.

“Hello, Sugawara-san.”

“Just Suga is fine,” is the cheery response, and Kenma knows that this is preprogramming, an automatic response to a verbal trigger.

“I need to lodge a Request to Pass for room 223, palliative,” Kenma ignores the statement, knowing that Sugawara will say the exact same thing next time he needs to fill in paperwork for this ward.

He mutters a thank you as Sugawara slides over the paperwork required for the request and sets about filling it out as quickly as he can.

_Consent from patient:_ Confirmed 12pm, November 15th.

_Family contacted:_ Confirmed 12pm, November 16th.

_Date of passing:_ TBA.

This part is always dull, the same repetitive questions regarding family and friends and funeral arrangements, and as he ticks the numerous boxes of _yes_ ; _no_ ; _maybe_ ; Kenma wonders what it would be like if he was ever able to just shut himself down.

Would the engineers responsible feel sad for him?

A spark at the base of his neural network tells him that he is deviating from his preprogrammed pattern of thought and he recalibrates his life simulator as he signs off with his identification number and stamp.

“Please place this under High Priority; the patient is deteriorating at a rapid rate,” Kenma says as he slides the paperwork back over the desk, and Sugawara looks up at him with gentle eyes, taking the forms from the small android.

“Is that all I can help you with today?” Sugawara asks with a voice soft, and Kenma wonders if he’s the hospitals’ own personal pity pet this week or something.

“That’s all I am currently required to do.” He curtly answers, “If you’ll please excuse me, I have another patient to attend to,” and ducks out of the nurses’ station with a slight bow, heading down the hall to the elevator.

“Good luck with your next patient!” Sugawara calls as he taps the paperwork against the desk before slotting it into the data transfer machine.

Kenma bows towards Sugawara once more, the elevator doors shutting without a sound.

As he recites the ward and room number to the elevator for the patient awaiting him, Kenma prepares himself to interact.

_Sympathy levels elevated; emergency ward means emotional level neutral._

The elevator announces that they’ve reached the desired floor, and Kenma steps out, internal processor whirring softly with the added force of repressing his emotions cortex. The emergency ward is a large, open room with glass cubicles lining the walls. The glare of the pristine white furnishing of the ward is almost painful in the afternoon light, and Kenma finds himself knocking on the desk of the nurses’ station at the end of the ward.

“Can you please lower the shutters for the window, or at least activate the frosted glass? The afternoon glare is making everything glow and it’s preventing the lenses in my eyes from functioning effectively,” he asks, and the nurse at the station nods with a smile, telling him she’ll activate the frost immediately.

“The usual note must not have gone off at the desk,” she apologises, pressing a small button on the control desk before her. Instantaneously, the floor-to-ceiling window allowing light to stream in from outside the hospital frosts up, easing the glare reflecting off the floor and cubicle walls. Kenma bows in thanks before continuing on to the cubicle awaiting him.

When he reaches cubicle one, he’s greeted with a tall lanky man sitting on the edge of the standard stretcher bed cradling his arm. When the man sees Kenma approach him, his face splits into a grin wide enough to give the phrase ‘grinning ear to ear’ complete truth. Kenma takes this in silently as he picks up the man’s medical chart and x-rays.

_Patient Name:_ Kuroo Tetsurou

_Condition:_ Complete fracture (arm)

_Cause of Injury:_ Undisclosed

“Good afternoon, Kuroo-san, I am your assigned medical attendant today, Kozume Kenma. If there’s anything I can help you with please let me know,” Kenma recites, not looking up from the medical chart.

“Y’know, usually when people first meet each other they maintain eye contact during introductions,” Kuroo drawls, “It’s the polite thing to do.”

His tone of voice alerts Kenma, internal processing unit clicking softly as it elevates the android’s level of awareness. _Smug,_ Kenma thinks as the tone registers in his emotion cortex. He blinks twice before lifting his head to face the figure sitting comfortably on the edge of the bed.

“Luckily for us I am not a ‘person’, so there’s no need to worry about politeness,” he replies, tone clipped and flat. “Not that you were doing a particularly outstanding job at it yourself,” he mutters under his breath, and Kuroo’s eyebrows raise as they watch the little robot moving around the cubicle, preparing for Kuroo’s physical examination.

“Are you sure you’re allowed to mutter shit like that under your breath?” Kuroo asks, surprise clear in his voice.

Kenma looks at Kuroo with a blank face. Kuroo watches him with an interested spark in his eyes.

“My personality simulator has a defect. The engineers don’t care and nobody has ever complained before. Any questions before we start?” he says, watching Kuroo perched on the edge of the bed with wide golden eyes. Kuroo is silent for a moment, caught up watching the way the fragments of light bounce around in the androids eyes as they flicker, processing and decoding the world around them.

“Kuroo-san.”

Kuroo snaps out of whatever it was he was caught in, blinking at Kenma, who’s waiting for his response.

“Everything’s cool! Except drop the honorific on my name, why do you guys get so caught up about that stuff? Humans aren’t that superior to androids, y’know.” Kuroo frowns suddenly, and Kenma blinks twice, processing the statement before casting his eyes downwards, watching his feet.

“It’s just programming,” Kenma says with a quiet voice. “I don’t really care for them, but the wars were our fault; maybe honorifics are the only apologies we have.”

“Wow,” Kuroo whistles, nodding at the android staring at him, “You’re pretty emo for a robot.”

Before Kenma can respond, Kuroo flinches, cradling his arm closer to his body.

“Hey though actually can you check this out properly now? Its kinda aching pretty bad,” Kuroo smiles apologetically, leaving Kenma frozen where he stands placing the medical chart back on the end of the stretcher.

“You’ve broken both of the bones in your arm,” Kenma faces Kuroo, unreadable expression on his face, and Kuroo watches the robot with a furrowed brow.

“That’s kind of why I’m here… you’re authorised to set a cast right?” Kuroo looks at Kenma suspiciously, and the android rolls his eyes, walking over to where Kuroo is seated.

“I can fix your arm without a cast but it’s going to hurt,” Kenma says carefully, watching Kuroo for his reaction.

“Whatever,” Kuroo bites out, “just fix me already,” and with that, clenches his eyes shut.

Kenma’s memory cortex maintains the memory of the way Kuroo groans in pain when the robot probes at his arm for the rest of the week. He wonders if the defect in his personality simulator is advancing when the emotions that the memory triggers are mostly related to sorrow.

 

-:-

 

The second time Kenma meets Kuroo, the dark haired boy is nursing what appears to be a broken nose. Something rattles inside Kenma when he sees Kuroo, blood glistening against his skin. He frowns as he approaches the cubicle, neural network sparking as it tries to decode the unfamiliar feeling. He’s seen countless injuries, bones protruding where they shouldn't, patients who’ve torn skin and lost parts of themselves in ways that he never imaged was possible, but for some reason, the sight of Kuroo bleeding and bruised registers something heavy and static inside Kenma’s circuitry.

“I don’t know if it’s actually broken, but can you check for me anyway?” Kuroo says when Kenma slips into the cubicle; words muffled by the hand covering his mouth as blood seeps into the crease of his lips.

Kenma stares at the mess of a human before him before sighing softly and picking up the medical chart to assess.

_Patient Name:_ Kuroo Tetsurou

_Condition:_ Suspected Broken Nose

_Cause of Injury:_ Undisclosed

Kenma stares at the _Cause of Injury_ box for a moment, internal processing unit whirring softly as it works to encode and translate the information into binary. The pieces fall into place and his memory is triggered, realising the same answer was give for the fracture in Kuroo’s arm the first time he was in the emergency ward.

“Why aren’t you telling us how you get these injuries?” Kenma looks at Kuroo with a steady gaze, eyes boring into Kuroo’s skull. Kuroo attempts to maintain the stare for as long as he can manage before becoming uncomfortable and glancing to his left.

“You guys really don’t know when to quit do you?” He gripes, and Kenma tilts his head to the side, decoding the statement.

“It’s just programming” Kenma says, voice even, and Kuroo barks out a bitter laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, like I haven’t heard that one before. Can you just check my nose? Stuff me with cotton buds or something?”

Kenma huffs out a breath and shuffles over to where Kuroo is sitting on the edge of the bed the same way he did when he fractured his arm. As Kenma stands facing Kuroo, he runs his hand along the arm that was injured, causing Kuroo to snap his head towards the android with a startled expression.

“I just wanted to check the progress of your healing,” Kenma explains, watching the way Kuroo’s muscles and veins tense and shift under the skin of his arm.

“Okay but my nose… ” Kuroo starts, and Kenma shifts his gaze to the bloody mess of Kuroo’s nose once again.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, reaching back to grab the little tray of medical tools all the booths in the emergency ward contain. He dampens a swab of cotton with a saline solution and begins to wipe the blood off Kuroo’s nose and mouth, taking care to be gentle.

“Well, well,” Kuroo attempts to drawl, watered down blood spluttering his words, “seems you’re not totally made of stone after all, hey?”

Kenma shoots him a dark look, but stays silent, focusing instead on the task at hand.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” he murmurs, mostly to himself, “but you’ve definitely given it a good bump. Or at least someone has.” There’s an arch to his brow that Kuroo suspects is intended as a silent question, and he sticks his tongue out slightly, swiping at the remnants of blood and saline stuck to the edges of his mouth.

“I got into a fight,” he says, and Kenma blinks, eyes flickering as his facial recognition program forms a memory of Kuroo’s face.

“Is that the cause of injury?” Kenma asks, and Kuroo wavers for a second before nodding slightly.

“Was that the cause of injury last time?” Kenma asks warily, frowning at a spot somewhere over Kuroo’s shoulder. Kuroo doesn’t answer straight away, and Kenma is about to give the dark haired boy the stock standard spiel about colonial violence, but before he can gather the appropriate data, Kuroo coughs, clearing his throat awkwardly.

“I fell off a ladder.”

Kenma scrunches his nose.

“Excuse me?” He says, feeling his central processing unit clicking as it translates the information passing through each layer of his circuitry.

“Last time. I broke my arm.” Kuroo continues, voice heavy with discomfort. “I fell. Off a ladder.”

Kenma stares at the figure before him with obvious surprise. Kuroo thinks it’s the first time he’s seen an expression that wasn’t shrouded in disappointment and judgment from his medical attendant. Kenma collects his circuits after a moment and regains control of his emotions, internal defect clattering away inside him.

“Ladders are self regulating,” he frowns, looking at Kuroo uncertainly.

Kuroo chews the inside of his lip, appearing to be at war with himself over whether to tell Kenma or not. He shakes his head decisively after a minute and looks up at Kenma.

“I found an old ladder and wanted to try it. I didn’t realise that old ladders don’t do the who auto balancing thing and it fell on top of me when I tried to climb it.”

The explanation seems too simple, as though Kuroo is hiding something, but Kenma nods nonetheless, scribbling it down in the patient’s records. When he’s updated the past records, he moves on to the current records, writing _got into fight_ in the Case of Injury box.

“Care to elaborate on the fight you had?” Kenma asks, looking at Kuroo expectantly.

“Not particularly,” comes the response, and there’s an edge to it that Kenma feels will leave him with his wires exposed if he presses harder. He decides to play it safe, as always.

“I’m going to put a strip on the bridge of your nose to aid in capillary reconstruction and also reduce inflammation caused by irritation.” Kenma explains, pulling out a thin white strip from the inside pocket of his coat.

“What else have you got hiding in those coat pockets?” Kuroo quips, and Kenma scrunches his face up as the implication registers in Kenma’s central unit.

“You might feel pressure around your sinuses but otherwise you’ll be fine.” Kenma continues, reaching to cup Kuroo’s chin in his hand and angling the black haired boy’s face downwards slightly to place the base of the strip. He feels a puff of air escape from Kuroo’s mouth as he tries (and fails) to breathe through his nose.

“Is it meant to inhibit breathing?” Kuroo says, voice nasally from the lack of airflow through his nostrils.

“Yes. Now stop moving.” Kenma deadpans, adjusting the strip so it rests straight over the bridge of Kuroo’s nose. He pokes his tongue out slightly as he concentrates, and Kuroo watches the way it flicks to either side of his mouth as he adjusts the strip to and fro. A huff of laughter escapes Kuroo’s mouth, and Kenma looks down at him in alarm.

“Does it hurt?” Kenma asks, concern etching it’s way across his face, and Kuroo just shakes his head, well, shakes it as much as possible whilst in the grips of an android.

“Your tongue does a thing when you concentrate. You sure you’re not human? It’s kind of cute,” Kuroo explains, and Kenma’s face scrunches up again. Kuroo smiles as the android steps back to assess the placement of the strip. When he deems it satisfactory, Kenma nods once, reaching over for Kuroo’s medical chart.

“Don’t play with junk,” he says, appearing to scribble something on the chart before pressing the pad of his thumb next to his sign off, “And always tell the truth,” he adds, scrutinising Kuroo. The advice seems to catch Kuroo off guard, and he frowns deeply for a moment, scratching his cheek in thought before his face relaxes, offering the medical attendant a toothy grin.

“Doctor knows best, right?” Kuroo smirks, and Kenma shoots him a dirty look.

“I’m just a helper bot,” he says.

“I’m going to change your mind,” Kuroo replies, pushing himself off the bed determinedly and saluting as he walks out of the booth, nose turned up to display the anti-inflammatory strip as though it’s some sort of trophy. _A trophy for what?_ Kenma wonders, before calling out a begrudging “Don’t come back,” the image of Kuroo disappearing behind the elevator doors with a wink.

Kenma feels his face scrunch up.

 

-:-

 

As Kenma makes his way back from the emergency ward, he replays the last couple of meetings with Kuroo in his head, feeling his memory cortex rewind itself like an old vcr tape. _Cause of injury: undisclosed._ The statements make Kenma wonder what kind of person Kuroo is; whether he's part of one of those gangs whose members go through cycles in the emergency ward, but then again he hasn't seen a tag for Kuroo yet so he figures that that’s not the case. There’s a certain level of frustration that Kenma maintains at not knowing enough about his patient, and his chest vibrates softly as he moves through the halls of the hospital, taking in the movement of sound around him.

“I’m going to change your mind,” Kuroo had said, and the words tumble around each layer of Kenma’s programming as he tries to convert them to numbers he can understand. A there's a hitch in his programming and he falters as his joints lock, momentarily frozen in place.

“Kenma? Are you okay?”

The familiar voice startles Kenma out of paralysis, and he stumbles as he regains control of his body.

“Shōyō.” Kenma almost sighs out of relief when he sees the orange haired boy grinning at his favourite medical attendant.

“Where have you been?” Shōyō exclaims, trying to bounce but stopping short as his IV drip rattles along the floor beside him.

“I’ve been around,” Kenma smiles softly, taking in the energy seeming to reflect off Hinata.

“I thought they'd taken you in to get your defect checked,” Shōyō frowns, and Kenma glances to the left, clicking his tongue as he attempts to formulate an excuse for stumbling. “They don't know how,” he settles on, and Shōyō tuts, looking over Kenma sympathetically.

“You too, huh?”

The statement takes longer than it should for Kenma to translate, and when he does he looks Shōyō in alarm.

“What do you mean…” he trails, eyes flickering as they register the small smile that's crept into Shōyō’s face.

“I won't die,” the orange haired boy says, voice soft, “they just don't think I’m gonna be able to leave. At least not until my body stops rejecting artificial organs after only a few months.”

Kenma stares at Shōyō as he translates the information, mouth pinched in at the corners.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, voice metallic as his emotions cortex attempts to repress the emotional response triggered by hearing that another of his patients has deteriorated.

“Why are you apologising? You've helped me more than any other bot in this dumb place, right?” Shōyō exclaims, glancing nervously around him as he realises he basically just denounced every android and doctor who's helped him up until this point.

“I just mean, it's nice having someone who looks close enough to my age that I can ask for when I want to feel at least somewhat normal again” Shōyō covers, and Kenma blinks slowly, taking in every inch of the small, vibrant ball of energy standing before him. He feels his internal processors flare up, hot against the metal under his skin and he flinches, looking at his feet as Shōyō continues to chatter.

“I just really wish my organs would hold out long enough for me to play even just one more volleyball game, y’know?” Shōyō says wistfully, before glancing at his hospital band, cursing as it begins to flash

“I’m late for therapy,” he explains, voice apologetic. “Maybe I’ll call you when I get to recovery, just like when I first came to hospital!” There's a beat of silence, and Kenma smiles softly, offering the expectant figure before him a quiet, “whatever you need,” before Shōyō waves his goodbyes and continues making his way down the hospital corridor.

As he reaches the fourth ward, Kenma feels overheated and laggy, moving past the nurses’ station and settling in one of the recharge pods, closing his eyes.

As he feels his body fuse with the electrodes attached to the back of the pod, he feels the heat trapped under his skin begin to dissipate as his cognitive overload from today is drained and transferred to the data bank attached to his identification stamp.

“Hello, Kozume Kenma. It’s been a while since your last visit.”

The voice is soothing, and Kenma feels his processors wind down as he leans into the pod, lips parting to speak.

“A lot has happened since last time,” he says softly.

“Oh?” The voice says, “Care to elaborate?”

It’s nice, this voice. Kenma knows that’s just an automated entity; a bot designed to listen to other bots and offer repairs to their coding to fix glitching due to overloaded systems.

Kenma only visits when his humanity begins to make his chest cavity feel like it’s about to catch fire.

“Shōyō isn’t going to leave the hospital.”

“It’s always hard when patients are given a chronic diagnosis.”

Kenma frowns.

“I’ve been thinking about what it means to leave the hospital,” he says, words guarded. “What it feels to be integrate, or whatever. Retire. If they won’t fix my defect maybe they’ll let me integrate.”

There’s a quiet hum where the infrared light illuminating the edges of the dim pod reads the electromagnetic waves Kenma is producing, as though measuring an emotional response.

“Integration is only granted under particular circumstances. It’s hospital policy.” The bot says, metallic voice washing over Kenma, cooling the heated metal under his skin.

“I know that,” he says, “I know.”

There’s a sense of helplessness in the statement, and Kenma feels his face scrunch up in the pitch black of the pod, hands curled into tiny fists.

“Your emotion cortex has recorded a spike in activity, Kozume. Is there something I can help you with?”

Kenma blinks into the darkness of the pod, eyes failing to adjust to the lack of light. It’s always like this. The entity bots are merely programs, faceless, bodiless, anonymous entities responding to a series of stimuli and triggers, be they physical or auditory. Kenma realised this the second time he ever used a recharge pod, realising that every single question he asked about the entity bot was thrown back in his face. Just like their predecessors, artificially intelligent computers like Eugene Gootsman, fooled the world all the way back in 2014, the entity bots were programmed to avoid. _Avoid the answers while you subdue the problem_. Suddenly, Kuroo’s refusal to disclose the cause of his injuries makes sense. The heat under Kenma’s skin dissipates.

“I think I’m going to leave.” He says, and somewhere deep within the soundscape of the pod he registers the quiet squeal of static electricity, as though triggering an alarm already on high alert.

“Leave?” the entity bot asks, and Kenma smiles in the darkness. “I think so, yes.” He says, “I’d like to leave the pod now, please.”

The pod is silent bar the gentle humming as the entity bot finishes off its background enhancements to Kenma’s programming.

“We hope to hear from you soon, Kozume Kenma. Please don’t hesitate to seek our guidance when required,” the entity bot says, and Kenma gives his thanks, blinking as the glare of light from the pod opening blinds him.

-:-

 

“You seem to have found yourself quite the admirer, hey Kenma?” Morisuke hums as he calls on Kenma for the third time a month. “It’s the same guy,” the fair haired bot squints at Kenma as though expecting an answer or an explanation or anything really, but Kenma just sighs and gives a small nod before moving toward the emergency ward.

“I don’t understand,” Morisuke rests his head on his hand as he leans against the nurses’ station in the General Ward. Sugawara glances up from his work, offering a hum of agreement when he sees the receding figure of Kenma walking towards the elevators.

“He doesn’t talk much, does he?” Sugawara asks, voice soft as he reads over the daily notifications on the screen before him, and Morisuke tuts as he turns to Sugawara with a frown.

“I just don’t understand,” he muses, “Whenever he’s with that patient, Kuroo Tetsurou I believe, he talks like he’s programmed to. It’s just around other people in the hospital he doesn’t seem to respond to, despite being developed and trained here. It's a wonder they haven't decommissioned him already, honestly.”

Sugawara offers a supportive hum, looking down the now empty corridor before going back to his work.

“Maybe he just needed the right push from the right person. Human or android, what does it matter in the end?”

Morisuke pinches the edges of his mouth in together, eyebrows creased in thought.

“You’re probably right,” he says, pondering the change in the small medical assistant’s behaviour lately. “He’s always given me the impression that there’s not much here for him anyway; maybe he’s finally found a way to get away from all of it, if not just for a little while.”

Kenma ignores the gossiping bots as he heads down to the emergency level for the third time in a month, wondering whether science intended to give fake humans enough humanity to feel the need to stick their noses into other people's business. It’s not like there's even any business for them to be chattering about.

He reaches the emergency ward in a sour mood, trudging over to where he can see the familiar black hair sticking out of a cubicle by the window.

“Well, well,” Kuroo crows when he sees the small robot shuffle into the room, hair curtaining his face.

“I thought I told you not to come back.” Kenma gripes, and Kuroo grins as he watches the android glancing around the room moodily.

“What’s wrong with you this time?” Kenma sighs, walking around to face Kuroo.

“Hm. Well I woke up this morning and thought ‘hey, I wonder what Kenma is doing today’, and then I remembered that you do the same thing every day, and that sounded really boring and sad, so I thought I’d come say hi!”

There's a beat of silence and then, to Kuroo’s surprise, Kenma smiles.

“W-wait what the fuck are you— did you just smile?” Kuroo exclaims, voice strained.

“Yes? That is a thing that we are capable of, y’know.”

The smile disappears as quickly as it appears, and Kuroo watches Kenma’s face go through maybe five different emotions before settling on one that seems to sit somewhere between confusion and hurt.

“Y’know,” Kenma starts, furrowing his brow as he struggles to articulate his thoughts, “the engineers won't fix me. Not even when I visit the recharge pods.”

Kuroo stares blankly for a moment before realising that Kenma isn't finished, just trying to articulate his thoughts.

“I don't, I’m not– I’m not suitable for a hospital. They know this, but they still keep me here.” The small android bites out, before turning his back to Kuroo. “I’m bad at taking to people, even though that’s why they made me. The thing that I struggle with – the thing that they think is a defect – is why did these smart engineers and scientists look at our programming and all the intricate coding and all the wires and circuits we’re comprised of and think ‘let's give them humanity’. It’s the cruelest thing; giving an android designed to help people die the ability to feel, even if it is artificial.”

There's a moment of silence, and Kenma looks as though he’s deflated. Kuroo knows he doesn't move when he stops due to a lack of vital organs like lungs to stimulate movement, but he still marvels at how still Kenma is as he stands with his back facing Kuroo.

“You make me wonder what it means to really be happy,” Kenma says, voice small.

Before Kuroo can respond, Kenma starts fussing around the cubicle, preparing Kuroo for a physical examination as though he hasn't just had a cognitive breakdown.

“Kenma,” Kuroo calls for the android, who flinches when he hears his name. “If you hate it so much, why don't you just leave?” He asks, and again Kenma smiles.

“Tracking chips,” he states like it's obvious. “If I leave, they’ll shut me down and I’ll be brought straight back and re calibrated.”

Kuroo snorts, “They'd try turning you off and on again?”

“You’re funny,” Kenma drones monotone, “but basically yeah.”

Kuroo hums as Kenma takes his blood pressure and checks his lungs.

“I could help you get out,” Kuroo says slowly, looking a Kenma with questions in his eyes.

“Don't be stupid, don't do that.” Kenma frowns, “that's not funny.”

Kuroo jumps off the stretcher, arms wide as he circles the room, “but I could!” he exclaims, and Kenma watches him as he raves with a wary eye.

“I _can_ help you,” he protests, “I have a friend who does stuff with robots – wait that sounds bad – I mean he used to work for a big robotics company, maybe he could help get your chip out! If we can just get you to his place then– ”

“Kuroo.” Kenma places a hand on Kuroo's arm, bringing it back down to the black haired boy’s side. “I appreciate the sentiment, but you're making me wonder whether I need to contact a different ward.”

Kuroo stops then, wild eyes softening instantly. “I’m sorry,” he shrugs, hand resting on the back of his neck self-consciously. “I just want to help, I know I can.”

Kenma scrutinises his patient; a (not so strange) stranger who’s for some reason invested himself in Kenma’s life and made the android question whether he's really defective at all. He lets himself wonder whether he could really leave, what would happen if he really did make it out without being shut down.  The familiar pinch at the base of his neural network makes his face scrunch up again, and Kuroo’s eyes soften as he takes an uncertain step towards the small robot, who looks as though he's been charged with static electricity, buzzing with energy.

“Are you okay?” Kuroo asks, and Kenma nods as he let’s his central processing unit click back into place. When he feels the pieces fall together again, he looks up at Kuroo with clear eyes.

“What if it did work?” he finally asks, gold flecks in his eyes glittering as they flicker, waiting for a response.

Before Kuroo can respond, there's a hitch in Kenma's programming, and suddenly he finds his internal processor rattling and clicking as it tries to fix whatever internal damage has just been done.

“Hey,” Kenma says, looking at Kuroo, who’s watching him falter with panicked eyes, “I think they're trying to shut me down,” he smiles, and then his legs give out.

 

-:-

 

When Kenma opens his eyes, he’s aware that he’s in a state of movement. Really bumpy, uncomfortable movement. When he looks down, he realises that his feet are off the ground, hoisted up and wrapped around someone’s waist like some sort of little mechanical koala.

“What…” he tries to vocalise, but his voice sounds far away and unfamiliar.

“Heyyy, you’re awake? You’re okay? They haven’t shut you down properly yet?”

The voice feels familiar against Kenma’s chest and cheek and there’s a beat before it registers in his memory.

_Kuroo._ Kenma thinks. _Are we doing it?_

Kenma’s circuitry feels heavy and static as he rests his head against Kuroo’s back, faintly aware of a ringing in his head, voices fading in and out of his telecommunications chip.

_Ken– please… ––important… there’s not… –ime_

They cut in an out, and Kenma feels his joints locking as he attempts to separate them from each layer of his internal processing unit and decode what they’re trying to say. All he can feel is the buzzing of his wires, the slap of Kuroo’s shoes on the dusty pavement.

“Where are we going?” He hiccups, struggling to see as he tries to take in visual cues from the world around him.

“Everything is moving too fast, Kuroo they’re going to–” he can’t hear his own voice anymore, but he can feel the static coursing through his neural network, burning the base of his inner cortex and making his skin feel as though it’s about to melt away, revealing the hard metal frame underneath and nothing more.

“Just hang in there,” Kuroo murmurs, voice fluttering straight through Kenma’s circuits, “and I promise I have a friend who can help you.”

They continue on in silence after that; Kenma feeling as though his skin and paint is flaking off and Kuroo huffing out heavy breaths as he attempts to keep up an even pace whilst carrying the small medical attendant he’s apparently just stolen from a hospital.

“I’m sorry I didn’t try anything sooner,” Kuroo wheezes over his shoulder, “I just wasn’t sure how, or when or–”

“Kuroo,” Kenma says, voice unfamiliar to his own ears, “As long as you’re here. That’s all I need.”

Suddenly there’s a searing heat behind Kenma’s eyes and he clenches them shut, pressing his head into Kuroo’s back.

“My eyes,” the android gasps, “they’re trying to open the lenses so they can see where we are– it’s the tracking chip!” the panic is clear in Kenma’s voice and for a moment they stop, Kuroo gently lowering Kenma into his lap as they rest, crouched behind a crumbling building.

“Don’t open your eyes,” Kuroo orders, and Kenma presses the heel of his palms into his eye sockets, trying to cancel out the burning.

“This is going to feel weird,” Kuroo murmurs, placing a hand on Kenma’s wrist before picking up a solid looking bit of rusting metal and lifting Kenma’s face to his.

“What are you…?” Kenma tries to face Kuroo, eyes still blocked by his palms, and when Kuroo drives the metal into his temple he chokes. There’s a small ‘pop’, and suddenly the searing behind Kenma’s eyes stops.

“What did you do?” he asks, blinking up at his companion, eyes swimming.

“I smashed up your tracker. And probably your head-phone,”

“Internal telecommunications chip.”

“Whatever.”

Kenma tries standing from where he’s resting against Kuroo’s chest, but his legs give out as soon as he tries to take a step.

“They shut down my motor cortex. I can’t move.”

Kuroo turns his head, and Kenma faintly registers his emotions spike momentarily before the dark haired figure turns back to the small android with a soft smile.

“Hey,” he says, reaching over to take Kenma’s hand, “at least we’re not doing this on our own right?”

Kenma knows the ‘we’ is really a ‘you’, but he feels the right side of his mouth crook upwards the tiniest bit, eyes flickering as they try to remember this moment. This moment right here where everything finally feels okay, even though he’s slowly shutting down.

“Okay,” Kuroo says after they’ve both rested, “up we go.” Kenma has about three seconds to register what that means before Kuroo scoops him up like a little kitten and continues moving along the path. The sun is beginning to droop low over the horizon, and the sky looks like it’s been dipped in gold.

“Kenma, Kenma,” Kuroo whispers down at the figure in his arms, “the sky looks like your eyes right now, look!” Slowly, Kenma opens his eyes, unfocused and flickering as though experiencing signal failure.

“It looks like Shōyō,” and Kuroo watches Kenma as he struggles to speak through the static fuzzing out his words. “He’ll never leave the hospital, I wonder if he’ll be okay…” and then Kenma closes his eyes again, brow creased as stilted memories of Shōyō flicker behind his eyelids, fractured and frayed from being burnt out.

When they arrive at the place, Kuroo shakes Kenma lightly, prompting the android to open his eyes, eyelids whirring under the pressure.

“We’re here, but we need to wait a minute, he’s kind of… Well, you’ll see in any case.” The ambiguity of the statement makes something inside Kenma flicker, and for a moment he wonders whether this person can really help. At this point he’d be glad even just to be uploaded onto a computer, anything to get away from this horrible lagging feeling.

Kuroo sets him down gently, placing him so he’s sitting with his back supported against the side of the warehouse, which looks like it’s been abandoned.

“Bokuto,” Kuroo calls through a crack in the doors, which appear to have been bolted, shut.

“Bokuto it’s me, it’s Kuroo, I need medical assistance, like, right now please.” Kenma perks up at hearing ‘medical assistance’, and Kuroo pats his head, hushing him with a soft, “Not long now.”

It’s silent for a moment, and Kuroo rests his forehead against the door, brow creased. All of a sudden, a figure jumps out from around the back, and Kenma jolts at the sound.

“Hey, hey, heyyy!” The figure, which Kenma assumes is ‘Bokuto’, comes around to greet them, casting a glance at Kenma and waving his arms. “You guys need an engineer?”

Kuroo grins; pushing himself off the front of the warehouse and taking three long strides forward, catching Bokuto in a sweeping hug.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Bokuto murmurs. “So am I,” Kuroo sighs into his partner’s shoulder, before pulling away.

“Now!” The grey haired boy claps his hands, “we’ve got us an android to fix!”

 

-:-

 

They take Kenma around to the side of the warehouse where Bokuto opens a side door and ushers them in. Old clunky computers line the back wall of the warehouse, blinking as they relay what seems like an infinite amount of information, and wires seem to be hanging from the roof. In the corner of the room what looks like a crate of discarded android parts sits quietly, waiting to be utilised.

“I was just about to start scouting out my next big project!” Bokuto exclaims, pointing at one of the computers, which is coding what looks like a program designed to enhance an android’s emotion core. He watches the computer affectionately for a moment before blinking rapidly and turning back to where Kuroo stands, Kenma looking more and more metallic by the minute.

“Right! Let me just move this guy and we can use the bench here,” Bokuto mutters, moving towards a figure lying on his workbench.

“I found him in a dumpster about a week ago, I’ve got him on hold while I patch up his circuitry,” Bokuto explains, grunting slightly as he moves the figure into a canvas chair by the crate of parts.

“Now, put him here,” Bokuto gestures to the bench, and Kuroo lies Kenma down as gently as he can.

“He’s a medical attendant at the hospital, he patched me up when I fell off your ladder, and when we got into that street fight with those guys harassing that cleaner bot the other night,” Kuroo rushes through his explanation, watching for any signs of further deterioration from Kenma.

“Ahh, so he’s the medibot you’ve been all caught up in the last month, eh?” Bokuto hoots obnoxiously, and Kenma makes a soft rattling noise, as though trying to take a breath through punctured lungs.

“Shit,” Bokuto hisses, “this is pretty bad; they basically shut him down from the inside out, they’ve basically initiated a termination code. It’s like if you or me were injected with a neurotoxin, like…snake venom! I can help, but it’s going to take some time and some serious rewiring. Can you grab me the wooden stool by the sink over there?” Bokuto gestures over to the tiny kitchenette sitting snug in the corner of the warehouse, just behind the bench. As Kuroo moves to get the stool, Bokuto leaps over to his computers, typing something at superhuman speeds. He uploads a program onto a small usb and plugs it into another computer sitting by his workbench.

“Thanks,” he says absentmindedly when Kuroo brings the stool over. He then moves to his crate of robot parts, shuffling around until he whoops, pulling out a tangle of wires attached to a small circuit board.

“Okay,” he breathes, turning Kenma onto his side and lifting his hospital scrubs up until the pale strip of his lower back is exposed. “Somewhere around here…” Bokuto mutters, running his hand over the strip until there’s a soft ‘click’ and a small panel at the base of Kenma’s back opens.

“Tickles,” comes the response from Kenma, although it’s mostly static.

Kuroo shoves his hands through his hair as he paces the workstation, watching as Bokuto carefully removes a circuit board from inside Kenma.

“Kenma, hey, I need you to shut down for this next part or you’re going to feel as though you’re burning from the inside out,” Bokuto says gently, nudging Kenma for a response.

“Can’t,” comes the laboured response, and Kuroo purses his mouth, hands pulling at chunks of his hair, “I can’t– Can’t shut down without the entity bot…” Kenma tries to explain, and Bokuto curses.

“I need to plug him in, hang on,” he says, leaping up and zipping to the other side of the warehouse, dropping to his knees and feeling for something under a bunk bolted to the wall. When he withdraws his hand from underneath the bunk, he’s got a small rod in his hands, and Kuroo frowns.

“Please don’t ask why it’s under my bed,” Bokuto groans.

“I,” Kuroo starts, and then stops, grimacing, “will not.”

Bokuto gives a grateful smile before rushing back to where Kenma is lying on his side; skin vibrating softly to indicate he is still functioning but otherwise unresponsive.

“Okay Kenma, I’m going to plug you in to the computer, just ignore whatever data you feel trying to pass through, okay?”

A nod.

Bokuto attaches the rod to a small opening inside Kenma and clips on what looks like small jump lead. The other end he pushes into a port in his computer, and Kenma’s eyes fly open, flickering wildly as they’re given an influx of binary and coding.

“None of it will make sense, don’t worry, just ignore it,” Bokuto soothes as Kuroo chews his nails anxiously.

“Are you sure–” the dark haired boy starts, but Bokuto cuts him off with a sharp look.

“Are you the engineer here? The process is slightly more intrusive but the outcome is the same. Now go sit on the bunk.”

Kuroo does as he’s told.

Once Kenma is connected to the computer, Bokuto sets about initiating hyper sleep. He removes the wires and rod from Kenma’s back and closes the open panel before moving to the android’s stomach, pressing a small, near invisible button where his belly button should be.

“Fuckin’ funny, aren’t they,” he mutters darkly, before opening the cavity and lifting out Kenma’s internal processing unit. He types in a binary code into a small panel embedded in the rim of the unit, and Kenma shuts down.

“Okay,” Bokuto says, letting go a sigh of relief, “now on to rewiring.”

Kuroo watches from his position on the bed, only vaguely aware of what Bokuto is doing. He hears Kenma rattle, then go still, and then nothing.

There warehouse is silent but for the sound of Bokuto snipping wires and fusing parts of Kenma back together, and Kuroo worries for a moment that the sound of his heart beating out of his chest might echo around the empty space and distract the engineer, who’s working with a surgeons precision.

“I can’t hear your heart beating so you can relax, you know,” Bokuto huffs, speaking around a screwdriver sitting between his teeth, and Kuroo jumps.

“How’d you know I was thinking about that?” He protests, face turning red.

“We’ve been together for what, close to ten years or something; do you really think I haven’t learnt how to pick up on your wavelengths in all that time?” Bokuto laughs, and Kuroo huffs, muttering a “sometimes I wonder whether you realise you’re not actually a robot.”

The conversation dies after that, both parties occupying themselves with fixing androids or chewing on their cheeks until they get ulcers.

After what feels like eternity, Bokuto steps back, carefully removing the wires connecting Kenma to the computer and closing the chest cavity with a quiet click.

“Okay. I tweaked him a bit, not gonna lie, but wait! Wait, before you kill me, I just cancelled the program binding him to the entity bots, they can’t follow him or hear his thoughts anymore.” Bokuto explains as Kuroo listens, eyes wide.

“I also altered his program so that ‘defect’ he was so caught up about was actually corrected and eliminated.” Bokuto continues, choosing his words carefully. “They uh…well, it wasn’t a defect.” He continues, and Kuroo narrows his eyes.

“What did they do to him, Bokuto?” Kuroo growls, and Bokuto fidgets for a moment before looking straight at Kuroo.

“They programmed a bug in him on purpose. I don’t know why, but it was pretty nasty, messing with his emotions and humanity cortex. It’s like he was a walking experiment.” Bokuto offers a sympathetic smile before turning to face Kenma again.

“His motor cortex is completely restored though, and I’ve programmed voice activation for him, so if he ever needs a reboot you just need to say the keyword. It’s ‘reboot’, in case you were wondering.” Bokuto chatters, moving Kenma into a sitting position on the bench, legs hanging off the edge.

Kuroo watches with fascination as Bokuto commands “Kenma, activate.”

At first nothing happens, and Kuroo holds his breath as Bokuto’s eyes flicker over his programming notes, eyebrows creased, but then there’s a surge of energy, and Kenma’s skin almost appears to glow and pulsate as his body recalibrates and adjusts to it’s new programming and circuitry.

“I feel lighter,” is the first thing Kenma says, opening his eyes slowly and assessing the two figures now grinning before him. “Did you fix my defect?”

Bokuto gives a whoop of triumph and Kuroo stands frozen, unadulterated relief contorting his features.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he whispers, and Kenma blinks, eyes flickering as they take in the visual and audio information they’re currently receiving.

“Kuroo.” The small android says, and Kuroo takes a step forward, breathing rapidly. Without another word, Kenma spreads his arms and pulls Kuroo into a gentle hug, and Kuroo nearly forgets how to breathe as he feels the soft vibrations of Kenma’s machinery buzz under his skin.

The hug is far too short for Kuroo’s liking, and when he feels Kenma being to pull back, he reluctantly obliges.

“Your emotional response spiked when I hugged you.” Kenma says, “Does it scare you that I’m a machine?”

Kuroo snorts out a laugh, watching the android with smiling eyes.

“All those upgrades that Bokuto gave you and you’re still fuckin’ emo as hell. It’s completely the opposite; I’m totally into you.”

Kenma blinks, moving his head to watch Bokuto as he bounces around, making notes in a scrapbook and glancing excitedly between Kenma and the anonymous android resting in the canvas chair.

“Bokuto,” he calls after the bouncing figure, and Bokuto stops, turning to look at him with a broad grin, “thank you for fixing me,” Kenma says, and the engineer’s smile falters, softening into something sincere.

“You were never broken, Kenma, just needed an upgrade! At least that’s what I used to tell the kids I was mentoring; an android is never broken, just in need of an upgrade. Oh, and you also needed people to stop hacking your neural network because that was pretty shit on their behalf, and then they made it so easy to hack _them_ sometimes I think the laws of robotics should apply to h–”

“Bokuto,” Kuroo interjects, and Bokuto closes his mouth with a snap.

Kuroo turns to Kenma, watching the way he looks around the warehouse as though looking at the world with new eyes. Kuroo figures that maybe he is.

“So,” he says, picking up Kenma’s arm by the wrist and letting it fall limply into the androids lap, “what do you do for a living?”

Kenma looks at his wrist before blinking up at Kuroo placidly.

“Y’know normally when people decide they’re going to break someone out of their place of work, they at least remember the person’s occupation. It’s the polite thing to do.”

Kuroo is silent for a moment, humming in mock thought before nodding.

“Yes, I think you’re right, and just my luck I stole a medibot as well; I think I have a pretty serious illness that needs to be tended to.”

“Is that illness being hopelessly g–” Bokuto starts to hoot, but Kuroo cuts him off with a loud cough.

“Anyway,” he bites, shooting his snorting friend a look, “you don’t have a place to stay anymore right? Why don’t you come and stay with me?”

Kenma’s brow furrows slightly as he processes the offer.

“You’re nervous about me living with you,” he deduces. “Why?”

Kuroo rolls his eyes, fixing Kenma with a mock glare.

“Because you are one of the most beautiful specimens I’ve laid my eyeballs on whilst on this planet. And also I could literally get shot with laser beams trying to protect you or something,” he says, tips of his ears burning. Somewhere in the background, Bokuto hums an obnoxious “Actually, I erased the memory of Kuroo along with the entity bots, they don’t know who you are anymore,” and Kuroo sighs, shooting Kenma an exasperated look.

“Do you want to come and live with me or not?” He asks hoping that Kenma can’t tell how anxious he is.

The android sits still for a moment, internal lexicon curling around the word _live_ , warming the metal under his skin for reasons he knows pertain to the messy haired person fidgeting before him, and then he smiles.

“Lead the way.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic comes from the lyrics for 'Goner' by Twenty One Pilots. I listened to them a lot writing this fic and I feel like that song sums up how Kenma feels perfectly. Kuroo's not wrong when he calls Kenma emo, huehue.


End file.
